Search Results: school funding

The report's argument that a base level of funding be established might lead to a lowest common denominator approach to determining what is an 'efficient' education, in both the state and private systems. Creativity, diversity and experimentation may be hindered in such a regime.

A two year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue. But when that process simply leads into a further protracted process, its value is questionable.

Gillard's atheism puts her in stark contrast to her immediate predecessors Kevin Rudd and John Howard. We consider several implications of Gillard's position, including her relations with church-state issues and community attitudes towards gay marriage and euthanasia.

'We need to break down the silo mentality between health, welfare and education. This exists in church agencies as much as elsewhere in society. We must be committed to providing first rate health care to our patients, but also to creating a more equal society.' Text from Frank Brennan's MercyCare Oration.

'It's what happens when it's the school holidays and the kids are bored,' quipped one British Jesuit. 'Bit of heavy rain would put a stop to it.' His minimalist explanation rightly questions the apocalyptic theories that are being erected on the behaviour of excitable young people.

In the midst of debates about same sex marriage that will test and probably break relations between the Gillard Government and some Christian communities, the chaplaincy program is seen by both camps as a win-win. A challenge to be considered by the High Court this month could change all that.

When I appeared on Q&A with Christopher Hitchens, a young man asked whether we can 'ever hope to live in a truly secular society' while the religious continue to 'affect political discourse and decision making' on euthanasia, same-sex unions and abortion. Hitchens was simpaticao. I was dumbstruck.

The current narrative about the ALP says the party losing its soul and ultimately turning its back on those Australians it is meant to represent. The Tasmanian experience suggests the same might be said for the Greens in the Federal Parliament, who assume the balance of power in the Senate today.

One religious group has described the National School Chaplaincy Program as a ‘God-given opportunity to go and make disciples’. Religious agnostics with a broad knowledge of religion could be better suited as mentors for young people coming to terms with their spiritual identity.

We need clever strategic and moral thinkers among our health professionals, who can engage with the demands of an aging population, with the gap in life-expectancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, and with the increasingly politically correct debate about euthanasia.

Currently the churches and the Greens have a mostly dysfunctional relationship. More than a few Greens owe their passion for social justice to a strong Christian upbringing. But while they both want values to triumph over pragmatism in government, they regard each other as the enemy.